In what appears to be a growing national trend, a large Midwestern city is considering becoming the next to protect illegal immigrants by passing legislation to officially offer them sanctuary.

Lawmakers in Iowa’s most populous city, Des Moines, are weighing a proposal by a pair of immigrant rights groups that would prohibit local police and other city employees from inquiring about immigration status.

Des Moines currently has no written policy regarding illegal immigrants but officials admit that federal authorities are never contacted when an illegal immigrant is discovered in the municipality. Now the capitol city of about 200,000 residents may actually go a step further by making the hands-off policy law.

Numerous cities and counties across the nation have passed legislation to protect illegal aliens, mostly by forbidding law enforcement officers from inquiring about immigration status even when a serious crime has been committed. Judicial Watch has taken legal action against several police departments—Los Angeles, Chicago and the District of Columbia—that have such policies.

California leads the nation with 29 illegal immigrant sanctuary cities, including San Francisco which recently passed a measure to offer illegal aliens official identification cards. The tiny state of Connecticut has only two sanctuary cities, but one of them, New Haven, also offers illegal aliens official identification cards.

In Illinois an entire county adopted a resolution declaring it a “sanctuary county” that actually takes most national measures a step further by prohibiting public employees from helping in the investigation of the citizenship status of any resident.